We want that nice tax man, too

Let’s say you missed the April 15 tax deadline. Uncle Sam slapped on a penalty – plus interest, after you didn’t pay the penalty promptly. And then you appealed, blaming your accountant and claiming you’ve always paid taxes timely.

Micaela Ochoa

And then let’s say neither claim turned out to be true. But Uncle Sam forgave you anyway, and refunded the penalty and the interest.

Too far-fetched?

That’s what happened to the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which paid late payroll taxes back in September 2010. The IRS didn’t catch on to the delinquency until last year, when it levied a $174,000 penalty. (The education office has a big federal tax bill, paying for both its own 1,600 employees and acting as an agent for most of the county’s 31 school districts.)

When IA asked why the education office blamed the Santa Clara County Treasurer/Controller in a March appeal letter, officials hemmed and hawed then finally conceded that, indeed, it actually paid its own payroll taxes. In an email, Office of Education spokesman Ken Blackstone indicated that an ex-director in business services provided misinformation.

That former employee, Nimrat Johal, signed the appeal to the IRS and copied Ochoa and then-Superintendent Xavier De La Torre. Johal wrote, “we are an involuntary participant in the county treasury” and said her office faxed a tax payment request to the county treasurer 48 hours before the payment due date.

Really? In fact, that fax was simply a notice of pending payments. Santa Clara County acts as the bank for the Office of Education and school districts, and requires advance notice to ensure accounts have sufficient funds to cover large payments.

Did Ochoa believe Johal’s claims, and not know that her office transferred tax payments to the IRS electronically? Or was she trying to deceive the IRS? And did Ochoa believe the claim that the education office had always paid taxes on time, even though the IRS had dinged it repeatedly for missing tax deadlines?

For its part, didn’t the IRS look in its own records of tax payments?

Ochoa won’t say, and the IRS isn’t talking. IA thinks that a lot of taxpayers would like to locate that forgiving IRS reviewer.

Sharon Noguchi

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The County Office of Education leadership is full of serial liars that cover-up their own mistakes, internally reward ineptitude, have no idea what they are doing, spike their retirement funds with raises, and displace any truth-seekers that aim to do the job at hand. If you work there, it is time to get out and take your wisdom to a place it can be cherished and rewarded. Let this vagrant leadership wither and fall at their own hands instead of on the backs of the few hard workers. If you’re a board member, you should be ashamed of dismantling an organization considered a “thought-leader” in the state, in the country, and potentially in the world.

The brightest minds will never again set foot in their facility. Just lay down while charter schools demand classrooms at your doorstep and watch as districts bond together to circumnavigate the County Office once and for all.

This is our tax dollars at work. We should demand better accountability, a fully publicized fiscal audit, an entirely new board of trustees, and above all: truthful and transparent work by its leadership.